‘Oman should fast-track economic reforms’

MUSCAT: Oman needs to fasttrack economic reforms and legislations, Majlis Al Shura and International Monetary Fund (IMF) advised, after an IMF official hailed the government’s economic strategy on their visit to Oman.

In the statement, Allison Holland, Chief of mission to Oman, said Budget 2017 would reduce the deficit by half to 12 per cent of the GDP, if targets are achieved. More- over, financial reforms, banking sector growth and efforts by authorities to implement Tanfeedh initiatives will boost economy in years to come, she concluded.

IMF advised Oman to continue improving the business environment by streamlining regulatory processes and increase the level of vocational skills that will support efforts to increase private sector employment.

In further recommendations, IMF staff advised that additional measures could include phasing out remaining subsidies, restraining government expenditures and increasing non-oil revenues further.

“We have held meetings with the IMF staff and we support their suggestion that there a need to control expenditure and accelerate reforms. In Majlis Al Shura, our focus is to improve the busi- ness environment to bring the investors into the country and we have recommended the government to speed up processes related to it. We have done well in fast tracking such processes but we haven’t done as much as we want so there is certainly an area of improvement. For any reforms in subsidies, we are very careful and any decision will be made taking into account residents in the country,” Mohammed Al Ghassani, Deputy Chairman of Majlis Al Shura stated.